Sunday, November 10, 2013

Gold Child

Mental acuity can be shifty. Sometimes trying understand Kaneko-san's muffled speech makes my brain feel like it's in second gear on the autobahn. And sometimes I'm not sure if it's me or him. Sometimes I think we do exercises twice, but my memory isn't so good and I don't mind the reinforcement if that is the case. It's only gaslighting if you have some inkling of the truth, if you question it, so I just carry forward. I do wonder how the Japanese words for "above," "behind," "below," etc., are only prepositions in English, not in Japanese. It could be a peculiarity of Japanese, or a confusion of mine, or a confusion of Kaneko-san's–who can say? Sometimes these things don't make sense. And sometimes "sometimes" means it will never make sense, and sometimes "sometimes" means that today just isn't the day for sense making. No worries, a smile and laughter are just [a preposition] the table.

Today's kanji included the word for money or gold. He smiled when he saw it, "It is in my name!" It is the "kane" in Kaneko-san, the remainder, "ko," meaning "child." I had never thought about it before, but of course. What other name could he carry? A heart of gold and the smile of a child. I simply cannot care too strongly about understanding less important things.